


Tango's Secret Santa

by coliei



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Holster is Jewish, It's only teen for the 2 swear words in it, M/M, Secret Santa, The Nurseydex is a plot thing, no smut here sorry, nondenominational holiday buddies, secret snowflake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9116815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coliei/pseuds/coliei
Summary: Tango has two problems this December: he has no idea what to get for his secret santa, and no idea what to do with a secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genus_species](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genus_species/gifts).



> This was pinch hitting and I got “Tango” before the full prompt, and by the time that happened I already had the idea for this and was going. So there’s that. Hope that’s okay. I may come back later in January and write a “first semester freshman year” fic for him though! I think this could qualify as adjusting to life on the team, at the very least.
> 
> Holster is as Jewish as I am: mostly culturally (ie does the big name holidays, knows his stuff, but doesn’t observe a lot of rituals like Shabbat and keeping Kosher). His view on Mainstream American Christmas is mine: fine on his own terms, not so great when it’s mandatory. So if he’s organizing a secret Santa, cool! If someone organizes it and makes it Christmas heavy, not cool. He totally appreciates the food that comes with lots of Jewish holidays, and gives kickass, swear-heavy explanations of stories behind holidays and customs. You should hear him explain the Passover/Pesach story after 4 cups of wine. Which may happen this April. We’ll see.

“Everyone, listen up, this is your captains speaking!”

Holster’s voice boomed to the back of the bus and shook Tango from his dozing against the window.

“I’ve always wanted to say that. Okay, Ransom, go!”

“Yeah, so! We’re doing a team gift exchange. It’s mandatory. And anonymous. Like a Secret Santa, or Secret Snowflake, or Nondenominational Winter Buddies. Blame Holster for that one.”  
“It’s true, my fourth grade teacher was afraid of offending the one Jewish kid (me), so we called it that. And I got to teach everyone Dreidel. That part was great.”

“Anyways. We’re putting a $25 limit on this. You all have a week and a half, we’re doing this the Friday night after finals end at the Haus. Homemade gifts are encouraged and treasured, but don’t make crap, yeah?”

“And Bits, pies don’t count, we know you’d make them for us anyways and we love you for that.”

“… I’m revoking your pie privileges, Mr. Birkholtz.”

“Fine, pie AND some other gift.”

“Deal.”

Ransom held out a snapback with folded scraps of paper inside. “Time to pick! We’ll come to you!”

He made his way up the aisle, as hands reached out from the seats to grab paper. Tango took a slip and unfolded it to see Ransom’s name scrawled in small, tidy handwriting.

“Be careful about keeping this a secret!” Holster shouted as Ransom made his way back to the front of the bus (Tango made sure to scrunch the paper into his fist tightly). “If your buddy finds out you have them before next Friday, that’s a fine!”

Ransom finding out was the last thing on Tango’s mind. It was still stuck in _holy crap I have one of my captains he’s a SENIOR I can’t let him down but I have no idea what he wants/likes???_ mode. What was Ransom even in to besides hockey? Could Tango get him something hockey related? Was that too much of a cop-out? He had a vague recollection of his captain being on a pre-med track. A stethoscope? One of those little round things they grow germs on?

Tango’s thoughts were interrupted by the bus pulling in to the parking lot of the rink, and Lardo standing up to give an overview of the evening’s game logistics. As the team filed off the bus, Tango’s usual stream of questions directed towards Lardo was strangely absent. Tango moved towards the storage compartment to collect his bag. As he grabbed it and turned to walk in to the rink, he came face to face with Lardo.

“Bro, if you’re out of ideas, ask someone for help. Trust me, guessing is not always a great plan on this team. I think Shitty’s ego is still wounded from when Wicks threw out the Hulk underoos he got.”

Tango had a brief image of Ransom in Captain America underpants, fervently insisting that they weren’t right, he was _Canadian._

“Yikes, okay. Who should I ask? I don’t want to bug anyone—“ (Lardo rolled her eyes, Tango missed it) “—so I guess I’ll wait till after the game? Who would be good for this? Not Holster, obviously, because he’d definitely tell, but I dunno who…”

Lardo glanced over her shoulder at a head of orange hair retreating to the rink. “Why don’t you ask Dex? He’s your roommate tonight, right?”

“Oh! Yeah! He’s a defenseman, too, so he probably knows what Rans likes!”

“Sure, Tango. Kay, gotta go wrangle the rest of the team now. Good luck, see you later.”

Lardo flashed a peace sign, flipped her sunglasses down ( _why is she wearing them if the sun is setting? I have to ask her about that later._ ), and strode purposefully towards the rink.

\---

Back at the hotel, as the Samwell Men’s Hockey team waited to check in, they relived the highlights of their victory.

“Dude, that pass to Ollie was slick. Some mad sauce to set him up for that shot.”

“Brah, not as sweet as Bits’ takeaway in the second. That defenseman didn’t know where the puck went for a solid 10 seconds.”

“Oh stop it, that was nothing. Look at Chowder! Stopping all those shots on that PK!”

Just then, Lardo turned away from the front desk and approached the gaggle of hockey players strewn about on the lobby furniture.  
“Got all your keys. I’m not your mom, but the bus is leaving at 5:30 tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late.”

Tango wasn’t planning on it, but he did still have to talk to Dex, and work on his communication assignment that he had missed for this roadie, and wait did the professor say she’d give him an extension until tomorrow or the next day? And what part of his grade would this go into? Participation?

“Hey, Tony, grab your gear, c’mon.” Tango was shaken away from his fretting by Dex chucking a key card at his head.

“Oh! What room are we in? Are all the rooms in a cluster like last time? I know Lardo told us to go to sleep early but is there a time we absolutely need to be quiet by? Because I know if we end up playing cards in Ransom and Holster’s room again we might get loud. But we don’t have to if we should all go to sle—“

“We’re in 212, don’t know, I don’t think so, we’re not all hanging out because I need to sleep. I’m turning the lights off at 10,” Dex snapped back.

“Okay.” Tango had learned that Dex was not always the happiest roommate after a long bus ride and a tiring game. He had offered at the beginning of the season to switch with Nursey into Chowder’s room, but Dex had prickled even more at that.

They rode up the elevator in silence. Dex frowned straight ahead at the door, Tango drummed his fingers on his thigh. They walked down the hall, Dex unlocked and opened the door, and immediately threw his bag on the bed closest to the door.  
“Great, I get the window, then? Thanks!”

Tango received a grunt of recognition as Dex dug his charger out and plugged in his phone.

“Hey, were you gonna take another shower tonight? Or one in the morning? If you aren’t, I’m gonna take the little shampoo bottles, because my mom said they have to throw them out anyways but she likes collecting them because hey, free soap.”

Dex raised an eyebrow as he focused on his phone. “All yours, T.”

“Cool!”

Tango threw on his pajama pants, plugged in his phone, then went to grab the soap and brush his teeth. He was planning on going to bed, but something was bugging him. He wanted to ask Dex something about… Oh! Ransom’s present!

“Hey ‘ex! Haat hould I ‘et hor Ransom?” Tango barreled out of the bathroom with a mouth full of toothpaste and an armful of soap. When Dex glanced up from his phone to give him an incredulous look, he ran back in, spit the toothpaste out, and tried again.

“What should I get Ransom? For the secret gift thing. I don’t know what he likes, and I don’t wanna disappoint him because y’know, captain, and I don’t have any good ideas.”

“Fuck, I don’t know. Isn’t he a bio major?”

“Something like that? I was thinking about some, like, icky medical equipment because maybe he could use it and he’s in a lab all the time but I don’t know where to get any and I’m worried it’ll be over 25 dollars. And you and him are both defensemen, so I dunno, maybe you had better ideas?”

Dex sighed, and put his phone down. “You’re not gonna shut up until I help you, are you.”

“I can stop talking to you! If you have work or something. I can just come up with something by myself. I might just talk myself through it a little, though, but I can do it quietly!”  
“No, you can’t.” Dex stared at Tango with a look strangely similar to the one Bitty always had when he said “oh, honey.”

“What’s something you know he needs?” Dex prompted.

“Um. Good grades? Less stress?”  
“Tony. That is literally every college student.”

“I could get him a starbucks gift card because he drinks coffee?”  
“Cop-out.”

“Red bull?”

“More interesting, but still a cop out, and you’ll get yelled at by Holster for ‘upsetting the coral reef with toxic waste’ or something like that.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard caffeine can really stress people out. It doesn’t do that for me, though. Does it do that for you?”

“No.” Dex frowned. “You might be on to something, though, with the stress thing. Ransom could use an outlet. I want to be able to be in the Haus while he’s studying and not be one hundred percent silent.”

Just then, Dex’s phone made a definitely not silent “BRAAAMMP BRAAAAAMP BRAAAAMP”.

“Shit, that’s my alarm, it’s 10. I’m turning in,” Dex said as he fumbled to stop the noise.

“You have an alarm to go to sleep? Doesn’t that wake you up?”

“Good _night._ ” Dex got up, flipped the lightswitch, and collapsed back onto his bed, leaving Tango stranded in the darkness all the way next to the bathroom.

He picked his way back across the room to his bed, and ended up running into the coffee table. Tango must have hit it at an odd angle, because in addition to the clunk he heard a buzzing sound. _Do tables make that noise? Maybe it was the carpet? Weird._ He finally made it to (well, ran into) his bed, and crawled under the covers.

_So I could get Ransom something for stress relief. A stress ball? Those are sometimes squishy rubber… so kind of like a round, soft, puck? Could I make one out of a puck? I wonder if they melt. Could someone freeze a stress ball and use it as a puck? I bet you could do that with a lot of things if they’re cold enough and round enough. Would they shoot as well? What else is small and round?... a cookie! Bitty would kill me, though, so maybe not…_

Tango was drifting off to thoughts of baked goods flying around the Faber ice when he heard the soft _kchunk_ of the door opening. He ignored it because _Lardo said go to sleep and I want to dream about flying mini pies_ , until he heard sheets rustling and a low murmur from the other side of the room.

 _Well that is certainly weird._ Tango was about to sit up and look over when he heard a groan choked off in a short gasp. He decided he most certainly did not want to see whatever Dex was up to. Instead, he stared at the clock on his bedside table, with a look of horror on his face, probably. He didn’t have a mirror.

 _Ten thirty seven that could rearrange to seventeen oh three or oh one thirsty seven OH SHIT THIRSTY SEX DEX IS DOING UNSPEAKABLE THINGS RIGHT OVER THERE_.

He tried his hardest not to hear the bed creak or the occasional wet sound, or to wonder who Dex was making those scarring noises with. _I can block the noises out and Dex won’t notice. I have a pillow. It’s fine, he doesn’t need to know I heard him. Just gotta be careful._

Tango steeled himself, shut his eyes, and rolled over, taking his pillow with him over the top of his head. The rustling across the room paused. Tango caught a faint whisper, “… owder… sleeps like a log…” and a reply: “let’s go.”

He heard soft padding footsteps, then a louder thud made his eyes fly open. Whoever it was had hit the door in a tangle with Dex. A hand fumbled for the handle, and pulled it open. The hall light briefly glanced off of a patterned band of a tattoo on an arm, and shone through half lidded grey eyes, then the door closed and Tango was left in the dark trying his best to ignore the fact that Nursey and Dex were making out next to him thirty seconds earlier.

\---

The next morning, the team stumbled onto the bus in various stages of “didn’t get nearly enough sleep”. This ranged from Ransom and Chowder, quietly debating who had the tastier granola bar, to Bitty, snuggled up in a hoodie with the strings pulled to obscure his face, dragging his feet up the aisle. Tango could not tell if Bitty actually had his eyes open or not. Tango himself was probably closer to Bitty on the tired scale, as he had laid awake for a while after Dex and Nursey had left, trying to purge the memory of the sounds he had heard and the knowledge that _ew, they were hooking up_ right there _who DOES that???_ From his mind. He couldn’t figure out when he had finally fallen asleep, but must have, because Dex reawakened him when he came in at 1:26 AM. That just set his brain off again.

Tango saw Dex head towards the back row of seats, so immediately ducked into one of the front rows. As he crammed his backpack under the seat in front and settled against the window, Ransom swung in across from him.

“Hey, T. You look a little tired. Sleep okay?”

Holster shushed him on his way to the seat behind Ransom.

“It’s before 6. Not everyone is as used to running on zero sleep as you.”

As Ransom reached back to punch him good naturedly, Tango realized this could be a good opportunity to make at least a little sense of what he had witnessed last night. He piped up as the bus started to pull out of the lot,

“Actually, I have some questions for you guys. As captains? It’s why I didn’t sleep well.”

“Contemplating life’s big questions, are we now?”

“Not really, it’s more romantic-related-ish.”

Holster gave Ransom a gleeful look. “It’s your turn to give the uncomfortable sex talk to the tadpoles!”  
“Nonono, not for me! Like, a third wheel question! Like, I saw something I shouldn’t have!”

“Oh?” Ransom quirked an eyebrow, which Tango took as an invitation to explain.

“Yeah, um, and it may have involved…,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “people on the team.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Ransom shot a look at Holster, held up a finger to Tango, and put his head over the back of the seat. The captains whispered furiously to each other, then turned back to a squirming Tango with what he recognized as their Serious Captain Faces. Mostly they just looked like they were slightly in pain, but Tango and the rest of the team always played along.

“Okay,” Ransom began. “First, thank you for coming to us first about this. You didn’t tell anyone else, did you?”

“No.”

“All right. Good. Thank you.” Ransom let out a breath. “You probably should not tell anyone. Because, not to name any names, but we all know how this could turn out.”

“Right.” Tango was vague on whatever details Ransom seemed to be implying, but he could imagine grumpy Dex getting a lot grumpier if he had a secret get out without his control, and he didn’t want to imagine Nursey losing his chill.

“Also, probably don’t talk to him about it. He’ll let everyone on the team know when he’s ready, yeah? Don’t want to rush anything,” Holster said, and Ransom nodded sagely.

“Okay, that makes sense.”  
“As for getting it out of your head, we got nothing. We’re still reeling from when we found out. Baby animal pictures help as a good distraction, but that’s about all, and it’s not permanent. Lardo does have a pretty large file of ducklings she can send to you.”  
“Bro. Instead of dick pics, she sends duck pics.”  
“BRO.” Holster boomed.

“Shhhhh!!!” said the entire rest of the bus.

\---

Rain poured from the December sky as Tango hurried through the yard up to the Haus. He was just glad that it was warm enough to rain today; 40 degrees felt downright balmy when it had been in the 20s the week before. He opened the door to warmth and the smell of something fried, and as he took off his jacket he pulled out the small present with a card marked “Ransom” in his pocket.

“Bitty? Ransom? Holster? Chowder? Lardo? I’m here!”

“We’re in the kitchen, come on back!”

Tango poked his head in to see Bitty at the stove with Holster, and Ransom, Lardo, and Chowder at the table. Lardo was holding a piping bag, and Chowder was covered in powdered sugar.

“Hey, Tony!” Chowder smiled. “We’re helping Bitty and Holster make snacks for later! They’re like jelly donuts, but not quite, I guess. Holster can explain better.” He spotted the package in Tango’s hands. “You can put that in the den! Or I can do that, I need to go get mine and put it there, anyways.”

Chowder took the present from Tango and ran upstairs to grab his own. Tango turned his attention to the piping bag Lardo had.

“What’s that for? And is Bitty making donuts? Are those the ones Chowder was talking about? Oh, and is that why he had powdered sugar all over, too?”

“One answer to all of those, T. Bitty and I are making sufganyot!”

“Bless you.”

“No, Tango, that’s what they’re called, dear. They’re for Hanukkah, Holster wanted me to try making his grandma’s recipe.”

“They were a tradition, until my mother decided that she didn’t want the entire house smelling like fried and banned us making them. I haven’t had them since high school! Basically, Hanukkah’s one of those ‘they tried to kill us all, they failed, let’s eat’ Jewish holidays, which also involves an oil-related miracle. So the ‘let’s eat’ portion is fried food.”

“Holster’s turned us into a production line,” said Lardo. “You can take over powdered sugar duty from Chowder, if you want. Take the ones I’ve already put the jelly in.” She nodded towards a plate of golden fritters leaking jelly from their ends.

“Okay!” Tony grabbed the plate and the sifter full of powdered sugar. “When are we starting with presents?”  
“Oh, the youth, always on about their presents.” Ransom put on his best old man voice. “When everyone else gets here. You’re like 10 minutes early.”

“Oh! All right.”

They listened to the rain beat on the windows of the kitchen and the pile of completed sufganyot grew steadily larger. The rest of the team slowly trickled in, and the volume of the conversation grew until Ransom and Holster announced it was time for the gift exchange. Everyone filed into the den, and Tango found himself squashed between Whiskey and Nursey on the couch. Dex was on Nursey’s other side. Tango couldn’t stop himself from raising his eyebrows at that, and he saw Dex catch him and turn red. _Ohmygod he knows I know. I’m going to have to move to Australia. Do they have hockey there?_ He almost missed Holster’s explanation of how opening gifts would work.

“We’ll pick one person to go first. Find your gift from the pile and open it! Whoever gave it to them, fess up, and you can do the hugging/thanking/whatnot. The person who gave the gift that just got opened then goes next.”

“Also, if there’s a card, read that first. We were not raised by wolves. Well, I hope not.”

“Okay, the captains have decided that one of the taddies has to go first because we said so. Whiskey! Go!”

Whiskey extracted himself from the couch, walked nonchalantly to the gift pile, and drew out a bag with tissue paper. He pawed through the bag, and pulled out what looked like a little booklet.

“Does this count as a card?”

“No, that’s part of your present. What’s it say?” Holster encouraged.

“101 reasons to stay away from the lacrosse team.” Whiskey raised one eyebrow. “I’m guessing this was you, Holster?”

“I can’t take all the credit, Shitty helped too.”

“Gee, thanks…”

“What else is in there?”  
Whiskey pulled out some stick tape and held it up.

“So you can remember where you come from, my dude.”

As he sat back down, Tony saw Whiskey roll his eyes.

“Holster, your turn!”

Holster extracted a small package, covered in what looked like burlap splattered in acrylic paint.

“I totally know who this is from,” Holster grinned.

He peeled the fabric back to reveal a book on coral reef care. “Lards, this is a terrible joke, thank you.”  
“Only the dad-liest for you, brah.” Lardo pointed at Holster and winked. Nursey leaned over to Dex and whispered something in his ear. Tango wished he had picked a different spot that was not on the couch.

The gift opening continued. Lardo got a box of crayons and a dictionary for her next project from Nursey, Nursey got a Falconers scarf from Bitty, Bitty got an Amtrak gift certificate from Ransom. Tango barely had time to wonder why he would need that, the train only ran to Providence, when Ransom got up to open his gift.

He picked the small package out of the pile, and peeled back the tape clumsily holding the paper together to reveal a stress ball and some ballpoint pens.  
Tango piped up, “I thought you could use the pens to take notes, and also click them to have something to fiddle with in your hands? Or just use the stress ball if the pens aren’t going to cut it.”

Ransom looked over at Tango with a look of mild surprise on his face. “No, the pens are perfect! How’d you know I needed more?”  
“I didn’t?”

“I sort of broke the rest of mine clicking them too hard. But like you said, I can use the stress ball if they’re getting too beat up on.” Ransom put the present down and crossed the room to the couch, and promptly put Tango in a friendly headlock. “Thanks, Tony, now everyone knows I’m a nerd!” He mussed up his hair, then let him go.

“Tango, your turn!”

“Oh!”

He approached the pile and saw a small box with a bow and an envelope with “Tony” scrawled across. Remembering Holster’s words, he opened the card first.

“Tony,

First of all, don’t read this out loud. Second: I’m sorry about that night on the roadie. I realize that was probably really uncomfortable for you. I also owe a lot to you for not telling anyone about it, or us ( _oops,_ Tango thought. _Well, I think they already knew, so I guess it’s okay?_ ). These are some things I wish you had, and you could probably use them for the rest of college, too. Especially if you end up in the Haus. I’ve heard the walls are thin. Nurse and I will tell the team when we’re ready, but till then, thanks for having our backs, and we’ve got yours too.

                                                William Pointdexter”

He opened the box to find a small bag of earplugs. Chowder peeked over his shoulder.

“Who’s this from?”  
Dex raised his hand from the couch.

“What are they for?” Chowder asked.

“Dex snores on roadies,” Tango blurted out, and glanced at the couch. Dex mouthed “thank you” or “fuck you” at him, he couldn’t quite tell.

“Practical and snarky! Nice, Dexy,” Nursey elbowed Dex in the ribs. “Your turn!”

The gift unwrapping moved on, and Tango felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He munched on a pastry when they were passed around, laughed at the cat in a Sharks hoodie that Whiskey gave to Chowder, and when he noticed Nursey and Dex’s hands pressed together in the small space between the couch cushions, he didn’t freak out. He had a lot of baby goat pictures saved on his phone, and that was good enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small epilogue: I wanted this to be part of the original, but it didn't work in nicely. It should clear up a slightly confusing thing from the main story!

“To sum up: Me and Jack are dating, and it’s really important that you all keep this a secret. I’m sure y’all could guess how the media would react if they knew there was an NHL player who isn’t straight. But we really trust everyone on this team, and wanted to share this with you.”

“We’re really glad you did, Bitty. Thank you for trusting us, and we won’t let you down. Right?” Holster glared at Tango, Whiskey, and the other tadpoles piled onto the couch. “Right!” said Tango, elbowing Ells and Brady on either side, and kicking Whiskey, who was leaning up against everyone’s legs.

“Yeah, Bits, we got your back.”  
“Yep, that’s what this team’s about.”

“You’re cool, Bitty, we got you.”

 “You all are the best teammates.” Bitty beamed. “Oh! I almost forgot! I baked a thank-you pie, it’s chocolate chess! If all y’all want to come to the kitchen, I can serve it up!”

Whiskey, Ells, and Brady immediately sprang up and jostled each other in an effort to get to the kitchen. Tango was about to follow them, when Ransom spoke up from where he and Holster were standing.

“Hey, Tango, wait a sec.” Uh oh. They both had their Serious Captain Faces on.

“Um, if this is about the soccer ball through the window, I want to say I do know who did it, but I’m not going to narc.”

Holster lit up. “Wait, you do? Shit, Tony, why didn’t you—wait, no, that’s not what this is about.”

“But we’ll come back to that later,” added Ransom, raising an eyebrow. “We wanted to thank you for keeping Jack and Bitty’s secret. It’s hard to do that sometimes.”  
Tango frowned. _But I just found out about them?_

“Yeah, I gotta say, we were a bit worried when you first came to us.”

_Wait…_

“Not to mention a bit confused,” Holster plowed on. “We didn’t know how you could have _seen_ something because Jack isn’t around that much, but whatever, they weren’t exactly discreet.”  
Tango’s mouth fell open. _They thought I saw Bitty and Jack Zimmerman._ “Oh, before I wasn’t talking about—”

“Seriously, all the pet names over the phone? Gross. I sort of wish Bits told us earlier so we could have fined them more. Dex has been grousing about the dryer for months.”

Tango didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the mention of Dex.

“I know, Rans. At least he hasn’t been taking it out on Nursey. Tango, if you heard the way those two used to go at it…”

Tango rushed to the kitchen to cram his mouth with pie and stop himself from blurting out “I already did”.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I have a tumblr (stelleralcid), and I'm always ready to talk about hockey related things and starved for attention :U


End file.
